


Dinesh in Furs

by doctorcolubra



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: BDSM, BDSM Scene, Bugs & Insects, Crossdressing Kink, Fade to Black, Humor, M/M, Makeup, Pony Play, it's actually not even smut, the wild stuff is mostly offscreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 09:53:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorcolubra/pseuds/doctorcolubra
Summary: Dinesh finds Gilfoyle's FetLife account, and decides to catfish him as a prank, which quickly spirals out of control. Takes place during the two fallow months of "Fifty-One Percent" (5.8).





	Dinesh in Furs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anastasia (haus-of-Haverchuck)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Anastasia+%28haus-of-Haverchuck%29).



> Okay so...don't be too scared by the tags! Our heroes themselves get up to very little hanky-panky onscreen. Mainly just a bedroom farce. However, content note: there's a brief mention of consensual, sexual use of cockroaches (no named characters are involved). 
> 
> A trusted informant supplied me with key details about their local kink scene (including the cockroach anecdote), but errors about etiquette and so on are all my own. 
> 
> Enjoy, and happy 2019!

Dinesh was still mourning the loss of his Tesla, so he was sharing an Uber with Richard. Who was on his way to a therapy appointment, again. The guy was up to twice a week. They all had a lot more free time for reflection, these days. A failing start-up with time on its hands—what a toxic, existential headspace. Richard was wearing sweatpants, in public, and Dinesh was wearing tapered joggers, because he wasn’t willing to give up completely yet. Like Oscar Wilde said, Dinesh was finding it harder and harder to live up to his blue china—or his fresh yet classic rugby shirts, or the Hamptons cool of his red chinos. But he was still keeping up appearances. 

Dinesh had news, in fact. Juicy news. Gossip. Tea. And while he wanted to be strategic about the drop, they all needed morale and he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer. He liked (needed) an audience, and Richard made a serviceable one. Not his first choice, but adequate. 

“So guess what I found the other day?” he said. “I was in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, and I was on my phone looking at Pinterest—”

“Wait, you were looking at _Pinterest_?” Richard interrupted.

“Yeah, Pinterest,” said Dinesh. “Why, how do _you_ choose a haircut?”

Richard, of course, had never asked for a specific haircut in his life. Clearly not about to start now. “I dunno, that’s really up to the guy with the scissors.”

“Well, some of us have _options_ when it comes to this stuff,” said Dinesh. “Usually I go classic. Before we tanked, I was thinking like…maybe a more modern fade to update my usual Ivy League. Yeah, that blank look on your face right now? You wouldn’t have that if you used Pinterest. Anyway, different stuff is coming up on my feed, and I click on this Tinder fail screenshot. Except it’s not Tinder.” Dinesh glanced up at the back of the Uber driver’s head, then lowered his voice. “It’s _FetLife._ There’s a cropped nude with a _very_ familiar tattoo and an unblurred screenname.”

“Don’t show me,” pleaded Richard.

Dinesh showed him anyway. “Right? That’s him. It’s Gilfoyle’s FetLife account. Trying to flirt with some woman—I guess—and she puts him on blast. Isn’t that amazing?”

“This says it happened in 2012.”

“Yeah, but his account’s still active.”

“Dinesh…”

“Don’t tell him I know about it, okay?” said Dinesh. “I want to prank him.”

“I want you to get that patch done. It’s still important, even…even now. And don’t—distract my employees with, with this bullshit, okay? We’ve got a lot of work to do this week.”

“This is why you don’t have any friends outside of work, you know,” Dinesh pointed out. “All you think about is work. A friend, a true friend, would laugh at Gilfoyle’s FetLife account with me.”

“I don’t—listen, okay, there’s no doubt in my mind that Gilfoyle has been making a total ass of himself on FetLife,” said Richard. “That’s a probability approaching one. I believe you. I just don’t want to know specifics.”

“If you found Jared’s secret Ravelry and wanted to talk to me about it, I would listen.”

“What—secret Ravelry?”

“Like, the throwaway account where he really lets loose with the forbidden takes on mohair and what he really thinks of the _Outlander_ season finale or something. I don’t know. Hypothetically. Whatever spicy gossip about Jared _could_ exist.”

“Okay, well…” Richard shook his head. The Uber had just pulled in to the weirdly-shaped building where his therapist kept his office. “I won’t tell Gilfoyle, but whatever you’re planning to do, just—don’t let it interfere with your code.”

“Stop worrying about my code,” said Dinesh, slumping down into the corner of the seat, looking back down at his phone. “I have a life, Richard. I’m not like you. I have dreams. Passions. A nemesis.”

“Do you want to maybe come in and make an appointment, while you’re here?” says Richard, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the office building. “Book some time to talk to Mark or Laura? They’re really nice.”

“I do _not_ need therapy,” Dinesh hissed. “Gilfoyle’s the one who needs therapy.”

“Okay, fine, just thought I’d ask. As a friend. Or whatever.” Richard paused, while the Uber driver sighed and the door-ajar chime went off. “Don’t get too deep into this, Dinesh. Just…you gotta let things go.”

“That is _rich_ , coming from you.”

Maybe therapy really was working, because Richard shrugged with one of his thin-lipped expressions of resignation, his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Yeah, that’s fair. Whatever, man, I’ll see you later.”

He closed the car door, and Dinesh told the driver, “Caltrain station next, please.”

 

Had Richard been a more appreciative audience, he might have been served the hottest tea of all: Dinesh had been catfishing Gilfoyle for eight weeks. On FetLife, though mostly through a local kink-centric Discord. And a little bit on Facebook, just to add verisimilitude, even though Gilfoyle disdained the works of Zuckerberg. 

Dinesh had named the character Amy, after Amy Winehouse, and sure, maybe that was a bit on the nose. But Gilfoyle was a living cliché himself, so he hadn’t even noticed.

Amy was outwardly shy in her day-to-day life (she was a rental agent for Hertz at the airport), but secretly a total freak. She wanted to get into the local fetish scene in Palo Alto, and had been making lots of friends on the Discord, including Gilfoyle. She’d sent nudes, which Dinesh had bought—legally—from a Russian model on a site that catered to phone sex workers. A redhead. Gilfoyle had already called her a “scarlet woman” in private chat.

It was all going great, in other words, but by now Dinesh had figured out that he couldn’t just ambush Gilfoyle at a party and reveal the scam. The scene did have public parties, but Gilfoyle never attended them, and getting into private spaces meant you had to submit to some in-person vetting. Dinesh would have to meet up with real people, live, and pretend to be into this stuff _himself._ Without getting caught.

That was dicey, but Dinesh had already invested too much time and effort into Amy. Worse, if Gilfoyle figured it out first…well, that didn’t bear thinking about. 

So Amy had temporarily disappeared. Gone to the hash bars of Amsterdam with some saved air miles. But Amy had already dropped mentions in chat of her cute Pakistani co-worker Nadeem, to whom she’d confided some of her dark twisted fantasies. Nadeem was, coincidentally, _also_ shy but curious about kink parties in Palo Alto, and had accepted an invitation to a “munch” hosted by a seasoned veteran in SoMa.

Dinesh was already having nightmares about Nev Schulman showing up at the Pied Piper offices with a camera crew. He had to get to the punchline of this prank, and fast, or else _he_ was going to look like the obsessive weirdo in this equation.

And that just wasn’t fair.

 

After a long ride northward to SoMa, Dinesh was losing his nerve but also too far from home to back out. If he’d still had his Tesla he could have escaped whenever he felt like it. Ludicrous speed. 

The meetup was happening at a coffee shop that instantly made Dinesh feel like a phony and an intruder: huge rainbow flag in the window, sign out front saying _IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE SAFE SPACE_ , rack of coloured handkerchiefs for sale inside, handcuffs, t-shirts he’d never wear in a million years, and…some things he couldn’t identify. He’d been trying to study, and could recognise some of the accoutrements: cock rings for sure, paddles, floggers or whips or cats or whatever. 

He could hear his parents’ voices in his head. _All the sacrifices we made to make sure you had a good job in San Francisco. We sent you to Oxford, to CalTech, and now look what you do with all the advantages we gave you. Lying your way into a complicated sex café. You have nothing better to do, is that it? You’re bored? This is how you decide to—_

“Are you Nadeem?” A woman in her thirties with short hair dyed pink. Smiling. 

“Absolutely,” Dinesh lied, matching her grin. “You must be…”

“I’m Aster, hi,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand. “You’re early, wanna help me move these tables around? This is your first time here, right? I remember Amy was saying you two know each other.”

“Right, totally. She really wanted to start coming to meetups, but her vacation…” Dinesh was already in character. Doing catfish improv with a stranger was easier by far than standing around thinking about what he was doing with his life. “Maybe when she gets back, who knows. But I’m really excited to start meeting people in person, putting some faces to the Discord names.”

“Well, we hope you have fun,” said Aster, pointing him towards a stack of chairs in the corner. “I have some printouts with me about consent, play party etiquette, safety, that kind of thing—couple of books you can borrow too, if you want. Some people feel more confident with a book, especially around here. Tech guys.”

Dinesh was about to agree, then remembered he worked for Hertz. “Yeah, those tech guys…they’re everywhere in this city…um, hey, do you know a guy who’s like—he works for one of those companies,” he ventured, trying to sound casual while he moved the chairs into place around the joined tables. “Start-up with a really stupid name? Beard, long hair, glasses?”

“Dude, that describes like twenty guys I know,” said Aster, sitting down at the end of the table and signalling to the barista. Apparently she had a usual. Dinesh had always wanted to have a usual, someplace. “Anyway, we take privacy pretty seriously in this scene. For obvious reasons. Aster’s not my real name, and you don’t have to use yours either, okay? Call yourself whatever name you like—some people find it liberating, actually. We don’t give out information about each other’s private lives. I’m not going to out you, and you’re not going to out me, right? If you run into your friend at a party, you can say hi, but be really careful about asking around behind his back.”

“Totally, that would be so uncool,” said Dinesh, mentally re-calibrating. “I get it. So…sorry if this sounds really naïve, but…at these parties, is there—like, do people actually—”

“Have sex?”

“I was just gonna ask if people were naked.”

Aster laughed. “You’re so cute. Yeah, private parties have a certain amount of nudity. Some people will have sex, but it’ll be in a room on their own. Not just orgies on a plastic drop-sheet. Level three and four events are more sexually-oriented. Do you have a partner?”

“Uh—” Dinesh had to remember his cover story. Did Nadeem have a partner? No. Single. “Not yet. Maybe if I meet someone who seems cool, I dunno…”

“My advice, don’t rush into anything,” said Aster. “Sometimes if you play with one person a few times in a row, you’ll start to develop some feelings just because you’re sharing intimate experiences. But you might not be all that compatible in real life. Keep an open mind and experiment, okay? That’s what this scene is for. Are there any particular kinks you’re into?”

Dinesh had chosen some from a list while making Nadeem’s FetLife profile (which had an Aubrey Beardsley drawing instead of a photograph, something that was not uncommon on the site). He had to pretend to be into _something_ , so he’d chosen the kinks that sounded the least painful. 

“Um, I’m kind of into—” Fuck. The backs of his ears were burning and he could hear his ancestors lamenting again. “Uh, blindfolds are pretty hot, uh, the stuff with the fancy ropes, military uniforms, wax play, um…” Everything else he could remember reading about was painful. “Maybe…maybe women’s underwear?”

“Oh, like sniffing?” Aster asked brightly. “Because I sell mine on Pantydeal, I can supply you. Farm fresh, local produce. Or do you mean you like wearing them?”

Faced with the question of whether he would rather wear panties or smell some used ones, Dinesh had to admit that the answer was clear. Not that it meant anything, it was just a matter of comfort. “Wearing them, I guess? I mean. I’ve never. Like, I’ve never tried it, but…”

“Oh, honey. Is it okay if I touch your shoulder?” said Aster, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder when he nodded. “We can play around with that together at the party, if you want to. I can bring you some—clean ones, promise! Nice and new. What size do you usually wear in briefs, like a men’s medium?”

“Um, yup.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, okay?” Aster said softly. “It’s totally fine. And don’t be too worried. You don’t have to be a painslut to belong in this scene, even if you’re a bottom. You’ll make friends today at the munch and we’ll keep an eye on you at the party. Anything happens that you don’t like, you come right to me. Okay?”

“Okay.” Dinesh was smiling now and it was genuine, because…well, it was nice to feel like people were looking out for him. Even if he was apparently giving off a lot of bottom energy. That couldn’t be right.

As the other kinksters started to show up at the coffee shop, Dinesh relaxed further. Even though the place was full of sex toys, the people looked and sounded normal (mostly), so it wasn’t as intimidating as the awful party at the hacker hostel with the stripper. Everyone asked permission, a little ostentatiously, before offering hugs or handshakes. The printouts on BDSM etiquette were detailed and reassuring; Dinesh liked to know that stuff.

On the train, studying the well-thumbed books he’d borrowed from Aster, Dinesh found himself so absorbed that he nearly forgot about his other problems. Arriving back at Pied Piper, he was startled to remember that he wasn’t Nadeem the cute bottom at all. Just a tech dweeb in a company with a stupid name, where the fish were dead in the tanks and the desks were scattered with trash. 

Gilfoyle was half-asleep in his chair, dozing through a podcast about serial killers that droned through the office. His _drink coffee hail Satan_ cup hadn’t been washed recently, with a few layers of brown in the bottom. 

Holden went past to bus the tables, dead-eyed as he trundled the cart with its dishpan and garbage bag, muttering to himself. “Men like sugar better than salt. Men like sugar…but the use of salt is more necessary…too much of either spoils the dish…”

Dinesh stopped him. “Hey, Holden?”

The kid halted in his tracks but didn’t turn around. “Yes, sir?”

“Gilfoyle’s been here all afternoon, right? He didn’t leave?”

“No, sir. He’s been sitting right there all day.”

“Good. That’s good, Holden, thanks.”

“Thank _you_ , sir.”

 

Dinesh stayed off Discord for the next week, lying low, afraid of triggering any last-minute curiosity on Gilfoyle’s part. Not that he seemed to be in any danger. Gilfoyle was as downcast as everyone else, reading a lot of dry treatises on the history of currency, showing up to work unshowered (and even later than usual), writing gloomy quotes on the whiteboards. _What hath night to do with sleep?_

It was enough to make Dinesh worry that Gilfoyle wouldn’t go to the party at all, making this whole thing pointless. But Holden had dutifully confirmed that Gilfoyle was busy on Friday. “Social engagement. Work hard, play hard. Work hard, play hard…”

The dress code for the party was…broad. _Fetish wear, latex, leather, uniforms, street clothes._ Not all at once, obviously. Dinesh opted to simply wear black, which Aster said was traditional. Normally, he wasn’t a big fan of black—that was for goths, beatniks, and people who didn’t want to stand out. Dinesh liked to stand out, and a girl at the mall had once told him he had the perfect complexion for jewel tones, which made him feel good. 

But there he was on the doorstep of an ordinary upper-middle-class suburban house in Noe Valley, wearing black, holding onto the cross-strap of his messenger bag as if it were a security blanket, all his anxiety swimming back.

_His company is circling the drain, and if he had a work ethic he’d be working night and day to save it, but instead here he is at a sex party for degenerates. A Roman orgy. Our only son…_

Aster let him in before his parents could continue much further in this vein. “Hi Nadeem, is it okay to hug you? Welcome, come on in—we need you to turn off your phone and leave it here in this box, okay?”

“Okay—wait, um, wait,” said Dinesh. “I really…kind of need my phone.”

“Everybody does,” said Aster with a sympathetic grimace. “But we have a really strict no-cameras policy. And it’s distracting for someone’s phone to go off when people are in the middle of a scene, so…”

“Right, right. Sure.” Dinesh had been planning to get an incriminating photo of Gilfoyle at the party, on the well-known Internet principle of _pics or it didn’t happen_. He should have bought some kind of tiny spycam, like they used to advertise in comic books. Something. _This isn’t even going to be worth the trouble if I can’t get pictures._

He surrendered his phone, turning it off and leaving it in the cardboard box in Aster’s kitchen, but then he caught a glimpse of a very familiar device. One that he saw every day at work. Gilfoyle’s phone was in the box too. Gilfoyle was here. 

Not _immediately_ in evidence, though. The party was already in full swing and the house was sizeable, lots of rooms decorated in typical “this is also an AirBnB” style…except for one guy using a girl as a footstool in the living room. A Sybian machine, which Dinesh was embarrassed to recognise on sight from watching porn. A cross of St. Andrew in the dining room, the kind of thing Theon Greyjoy was tied to during Season 3. Lots of vinyl sheets covering the hardwood.

Other than that, pretty normal.

Aster was giving him a tour, telling him the rules, pointing out the “dungeon-masters” who roamed the corridors like hall-monitors in spikes and leather. Some women had their tits out. This was not a drill.

Dinesh was starting to feel the way he had at the party with Mochachino—he wanted to hide in the kitchen with people like Richard and Big Head. God, he would have been so glad to see Big Head right now. _Semper eadem_ , Big Head was, like the citizens of Leicester. Always the same. Even Richard would have been a comforting presence, someone else who was just as anxious as Dinesh. If not much more so. Fellow losers, his own tribesmen. 

Instead, every time he turned a corner, he thought he was going to see Gilfoyle pulling anal beads out of some hot chick’s ass.

That would have been terrifying enough, but as Aster led him past an open door, Dinesh saw something even wilder. Without his own volition, he stopped and stared in the doorway. “That’s…uh, she is really—she's very naked...”

Aster hushed him. “You can watch, just save comments for the end. Don’t distract the bottom.”

A pretty brunette girl was lying on a table, fully nude, legs spread. The top, a guy with an undercut and a man-bun, was slowly inserting a clear plastic tube into her…well, into her pussy. Dinesh was not accustomed to that word as an ordinary noun; “pussy” had always been abstract to him, a goal, an accomplishment. The tube looked like a test tube, almost, closed at one end and open at the other. 

The top then produced a plastic jar and some forceps, with which…

Dinesh swallowed and whispered to Aster, “That jar is full of…what are those?”

“Cockroaches,” Aster whispered back. 

“But not real ones. Right?”

“Everything’s real.”

“No. _No._ ”

“Shh.”

The cockroaches wriggled and spun their little antennae as the top plucked them out of the jar with the forceps, one by one, and carefully inserted each into the plastic tube. The tube in the girl’s pussy.

“I gotta go,” Dinesh whispered to Aster, backing into the hallway.

 

Aster was about to come with him, but he bolted. He wanted to find a bathroom, but there were no dungeon-master hall-monitors in sight and he didn’t know where he was going. A guy in a leather harness told him _du calme_ in a fake-sounding Cajun accent. A girl was riding on the back of a guy who wore a saddle and a horse’s-tail buttplug. Someone else, gender and age obscured, was sloshing through a wading pool filled with mud—from the smell of it, there was sheep manure from a garden centre in the mix as well. Churning through the mud face-first, like a pig digging up truffles. 

_Forget the prank. Who cares if Gilfoyle figures out if it was you, who cares if Nev Schulman throws your phone in the Bay, who cares, who cares who cares…_

Dinesh had gone upstairs, like a dumb white girl in a horror movie, and was huddled on the landing while some people close by were counting down from ten in another room. He didn’t want to know what would happen when they got to one, but he found out anyway: there was a loud impact, like a hammer hitting wood, and somebody let out a cry through gritted teeth.

“Nadeem!” Aster had caught up with him. “Honey, you look like you’re gonna pass out. I’m sorry, that was a pretty extreme scene for a first-timer to watch. Come with me, we’ll chill out someplace quiet.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dinesh mumbled, still clinging to one of the balustrades on the railing. “I’m sorry, I should never have come here. I’ve wasted your time, I’ve been such an asshole…”

She hushed him. “Stop, stop. Let’s just relax first. No pressure. We’ll get you something to eat and I’ll show you some of the things I brought you. Okay?”

“I should go.”

“You can if you want.” She squeezed his hand. “But I think you should try eating something first. Get your blood sugar up.”

So Aster brought Dinesh to a quiet spare bedroom and let him have a few minutes’ quiet before she came back with a plate of cookies and a shopping bag of women’s panties. Dinesh didn’t have it in him to refuse. 

The light was soft and dim, Aster’s voice was reassuring. It was like an ASMR video. She brushed his hair, took off his shoes and rubbed his feet, keeping up a gentle monologue the whole time, rambling about Sephora sales and why she didn’t like thongs. “You should try the purple ones, or the hot pink, that’s such a fun colour—brights and jewel tones look so good on you, with your skin-tone…”

Twenty minutes later, Dinesh was sporting a half-chub in a pair of bright lavender bikini briefs, with a row of eight lipstick swatches down his inner arm. Reds, pinks, oranges, even brilliant greens and blues. Aster thought the orange looked best on him, and she’d begged to be allowed to do his eyeliner as well. Dinesh let her. He liked the look of it, even. None of it hurt. None of it was scary. It was humiliating, but in kind of a sexy way—she wasn’t being cruel, but he knew that at any second she could start laughing. Except she wasn’t laughing. She was being endlessly, relentlessly kind. He felt like a doll, cosseted and cared for and loved. Something precious.

Someone knocked at the door. “Aster?”

“I’m in the middle of something,” Aster replied.

“We need you downstairs for two minutes, it’s important.”

Aster sighed and patted Dinesh’s cheek. “I’ll be right back. Can you wait, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Dinesh murmured, after clearing his throat. “I’m not freaking out anymore, it’s okay.”

She smiled. “Good boy. Pretty, pretty boy. Stay right here.”

She left, and Dinesh amused himself for a few minutes. Not _jacking off_ , of course not, but touching a little. Looking in the mirror. Gently touching the orange lipstick on his lower lip with the tip of his smallest finger, feeling the sensation and the texture of it; it smelled sweet and creamy, like vanilla cake batter, and it wasn’t quite sticky but it also wasn’t—

The door opened again, but it wasn’t Aster. “I think this room’s free for…oh.”

That was a familiar voice.

“Well now.” Gilfoyle was shirtless, wearing leather pants and some chunky boots. He creaked and thumped and rattled at every step; how the hell had Dinesh not heard him coming? Gilfoyle came inside the spare bedroom, dismissing his unseen companion in the hallway, shutting the door behind him with a firm click. “If it isn’t J. Edgar Hoover.”

Dinesh felt his throat click, his mouth dry. He swallowed. “I caught you,” he said faintly.

“Did you?” Gilfoyle stood with his arms folded, looking down at Dinesh on the bed. “Looks to me like I caught you. Sitting alone in full sissy mode with a pile of makeup and women’s panties. And an empty whippet box.”

“That was empty when I got here,” Dinesh said, truthfully. Gathering his wits back, he said, “Looking for Amy?”

Gilfoyle was wearing contacts instead of his glasses—not the cat-eye lenses, thank God, but normal contacts. Without his glasses, his eyes looked bigger, long-lashed and pretty. “What about Amy—”

“I’m Amy,” Dinesh said, rising now to his feet, feeling a surge of power. “I mean—I made you think she was real, you bought it, you believed it—”

“You know, I know you’re _not_ a terrorist but maybe you should consider joining up,” said Gilfoyle, planting one foot against the door to hold it closed. “Joining ISIS would give you something to do. Clearly you’ve got too much time on your hands.”

Dinesh laughed, a gleeful, high-pitched _Amadeus_ giggle. “Oh, that’s it, yup, you always go for the racist stuff when you don’t know what else to say. Fuck, this was all worth it just for that look on your face. You believed it, you believed me—”

“Whatever.” Gilfoyle’s eyes were on Dinesh’s painted lips. “You should see the look on _your_ face, Cover Girl.”

“I _have_ seen it, and guess what, I’m working it,” Dinesh gloated. Then: “Wait a minute. You’re turned on. By this. By me. You’re turned on.”

Gilfoyle didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “As an Adept of the Beast, I’m not ashamed of my degenerate appetites. Are you?”

“These aren’t _my_ appetites,” Dinesh protested. “I came here to—mess with you.”

“You were about to say you came here to fuck with me.”

True. “So?”

“You stopped because of the connotations,” said Gilfoyle. “Did you want to fuck _with_ me, or did you want to fuck me? You’re not just gay for my code, are you? You’re enjoying this just as much as I am, Dinesh. You went to an awful lot of trouble to get my attention.”

"Yeah, like Amy didn't have it already,” Dinesh shot back. “Your scarlet woman, remember? You spent eight weeks talking to her. _Eight._ You were into it.”

Gilfoyle scoffed. “I knew it was you.”

“That does _not_ help your case.” A little thrill had gone through Dinesh: _I knew it was you._ “Anyway, bullshit. When? When did you know?"

Gilfoyle sat down on the edge of the bed, and began to methodically unlace his boots. “You were careful with your EXIF data when you posted images. I’ll give you that. It took me a long time to track the model—she _was_ a model, right? I knew she was too good to be true, but whatever, people have a lot of reasons for using fake pics. It’s a kink scene, she could’ve just been insecure. That was my first guess, because even a new Facebook account…she might’ve just wanted to keep the streams separate. ‘Amy’ also used a lot of British spellings, for someone who was supposed to be from Boston.” 

“None of that’s conclusive. Fuck, I should’ve caught that, though,” said Dinesh. “I could’ve changed my spellcheck settings so easily.”

Gilfoyle gave one of his barely-there smiles, still looking down at his boots as he unlaced them. “You did make me work for it.”

It was the closest thing to a compliment that Dinesh had heard from him in a very long time. “Really?”

“Yup.” Gilfoyle looked Dinesh over, eyes lingering on the bulge in his lavender knickers. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Dinesh knew he wasn’t going to get a better offer than that, as disappointing as it was. If he tried to make Gilfoyle a laughingstock around the office, he faced the same risk himself. “Okay,” he said finally. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“In that case,” said Gilfoyle, “you may as well let me mess up that pretty makeup.”

Dinesh caught his breath. He didn’t protest, and after a second he gave the smallest nod.

Gilfoyle leaned in and pressed him back against the pile of cotton panties on the bed. His beard was rough against Dinesh’s lips, his leather pants creaked, and Dinesh suddenly had the strangest sense that everything had gone according to plan after all. This was a strange victory, but it was his.


End file.
